Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Mimicking American-Mexican food

Since I haven't yet mastered how to deal with the slabs of meat you get here, it has been rather difficult to be creative about our dinner menu only with the kinds of meat that I know how to cook - basically chicken and ground pork or beef :-(
One thing that I tried was mimicking Mexican food, such as Taco Salad and Quesadilla. I bought salad leaves, beans (can't find black beans here, though...), ground beef, onions, tomatoes, hot peppers (found some in Interspar), tortilla wraps, limes, lemon, koriander, avocado, a block of cheddar cheese (found in TESCO), and a bag of shredded mozzarella cheese.
Then I made salsa using chopped onions, chopped tomatoes, and chopped hot peppers mixed with lime juice, olive oil, salt and pepper, and koriander. And made guacamole with mashed avocado, chopped onion, chopped tomato mixed with sour cream, salt and pepper, and lemon juice. Let them rest in the frig while you make the other stuff.

Taco salad is fairly easy as I found some Taco seasoning mix. :) I just sauteed ground beef with the seasoning mix, and dumped it on a bed of salad leaves. Then top with the salsa, cubed avocado, and shredded cheddar (using a shredder). Sprinkle chopped cilantro on it, and add some sour cream. Done!

Quesadillas are also very easy. Spread olive oil very thinly on the surface of tortilla wrap, top it with shredded mozzarella and cheddar cheese, and sprinkle chopped cilantro and hot peppers on top. Cover it with another tortilla (brush some olive oil on the surface facing down). Heat up a frying pan with tiny bit of olive oil and cook the Quesadilla until the surface gets crispy on both side. That's it. Serve it with the homemade guacamole.